The Extreme Centre

with Tariq Ali

Hosted by CBC’s Adrian Harewood

The Extreme Centre

with Tariq Ali

Hosted by CBC’s Adrian Harewood

28

Sunday

Oct

2018

4:00pm

Christ Church Cathedral

414 Sparks Street

Tariq Ali

Adrian Harewood sits down with Tariq Ali—one of the world’s best-known radicals—for a conversation on the history of revolution, the early years of the 1960s protest movement and his assertion that the “global world-order” is more concerned with needs of the market than the promise of democracy.

What makes a young radical? Reissued to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of 1968, Street Fighting Years captures the mood and energy of an era of hope and passion as Tariq tracks the growing significance of the 1960s protest movement, as well as his own formation as a leading political activist. Through his personal story, he recounts a counter-history of a sixties rocked by the Prague Spring, student protests on the streets of Europe and America, the effects of the Vietnam war, and the aftermath of the revolutionary insurgencies led by Che Guevara. It is a story that takes us from Paris and Prague to Hanoi and Bolivia, encountering along the way Malcolm X, Bertrand Russell, Marlon Brando, Henry Kissinger, and Mick Jagger.

In the fully updated edition of The Extreme Centre, Tariq looks at the people and events that have pushed politics away from the needs of the people and towards the needs of the business elite. It is an investigation that reaches its logical conclusion with the presidency of Donald Trump.

He also considers recent events that suggest, despite everything, that there is room for hope. He finds promise in Latin America and at the edges of Europe. Emerging parties in Scotland, Greece and Spain, formed out of the 2008 crisis, are offering new hope for democracy. Even in the UK, with the rise of Jeremy Corbyn, there are indications that the hegemony of the centre may be weaker than imagined.

In The Dilemmas of Lenin, published to mark the centenary of the Russian Revolution, Ali provides an insightful portrait of Lenin’s deepest preoccupations and underlines the clarity and vigour of his theoretical and political formulations. He concludes with an affecting account of Lenin’s last two years, when he realised that “we knew nothing” and insisted that the revolution had to be renewed lest it wither and die.

Books available for purchase at every event: Proceeds support our free children’s literacy programs.

Adrian Harewood sits down with Tariq Ali—one of the world’s best-known radicals—for a conversation on the history of revolution, the early years of the 1960s protest movement and his assertion that the “global world-order” is more concerned with needs of the market than the promise of democracy.

What makes a young radical? Reissued to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of 1968, Street Fighting Years captures the mood and energy of an era of hope and passion as Tariq tracks the growing significance of the 1960s protest movement, as well as his own formation as a leading political activist. Through his personal story, he recounts a counter-history of a sixties rocked by the Prague Spring, student protests on the streets of Europe and America, the effects of the Vietnam war, and the aftermath of the revolutionary insurgencies led by Che Guevara. It is a story that takes us from Paris and Prague to Hanoi and Bolivia, encountering along the way Malcolm X, Bertrand Russell, Marlon Brando, Henry Kissinger, and Mick Jagger.

In the fully updated edition of The Extreme Centre, Tariq looks at the people and events that have pushed politics away from the needs of the people and towards the needs of the business elite. It is an investigation that reaches its logical conclusion with the presidency of Donald Trump.

He also considers recent events that suggest, despite everything, that there is room for hope. He finds promise in Latin America and at the edges of Europe. Emerging parties in Scotland, Greece and Spain, formed out of the 2008 crisis, are offering new hope for democracy. Even in the UK, with the rise of Jeremy Corbyn, there are indications that the hegemony of the centre may be weaker than imagined.

In The Dilemmas of Lenin, published to mark the centenary of the Russian Revolution, Ali provides an insightful portrait of Lenin’s deepest preoccupations and underlines the clarity and vigour of his theoretical and political formulations. He concludes with an affecting account of Lenin’s last two years, when he realised that “we knew nothing” and insisted that the revolution had to be renewed lest it wither and die.

Books available for purchase at every event: Proceeds support our free children’s literacy programs.